CAPITheticAL Winners

It was a competition that attracted 114 entries from 24 countries - a contest designed to inspire new ideas about how to create a modern capital city.

Professional architects, designers and students were asked to imagine what an Australian national capital could look like in the 21st century and whether it should even be on the current site of Canberra.

The competition, managed by the Australian Institute of Architects, as part of Canberra's Centenary celebrations, was also aimed at raising awareness about the creation of Canberra itself, including the original international design competition won by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.

The winner of the $70,000 first prize is The Northern Capital, designed by the Fremantle-based firm Ecoscape.

It proposes retaining Canberra as a capital city and building a second capital at Lake Argyle in the Kimberley to develop northern Australia and Australia's ties with its northern neighbours, while integrating Aboriginal culture.

Second prize has gone to Brisbane based Brit Andresen and Mara Francis for Sedimentary City Canberra - a layered design that judges described as a "poetic and visually sumptuous projection of what might occur in the future".

The jury, chaired by Professor Barbara Norman from the University of Canberra, awarded a commendation to the Urban Design Research Centre in Perth for its design for a new capital city adjacent to Darwin, while the student prize has gone to Kate Dickinson and Annabel Koeck from Sydney for Proto:Capital which sees the capital as an urban prototype for the nation.

Professor Norman says climate change, sustainability and Australia's indigenous heritage have emerged as strong themes, as well as the way in which the capital embraces the nation and our place within the Asia region.

"This design competition is to inspire us and to inspire our thinkers and our leaders," she says. "But in terms of taking decisions in the future I think there's more than a richness there to be able to be practically implemented."